Charts, maps and infographics

The best city in the world

Live and let live

HOW to measure the immeasurable? Trying to rank the world's best cities is like trying to quantify the finest mother on mother's day—most of us have a biased interest. Even the most wordly cosmocrats place different emphasis on different features of a city.

For years, this newspaper's sibling, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has rated the world's top cities in a livability survey. This considers 30 indicators of varying weights in five broad areas, including social stability, infrastructure, education and culture. As an innovative experiment to improve the index, the EIU partnered with BuzzData, a firm that lets users share information, to run a contest encouraging people build upon the ranking.

The winning method looked at seven new indicators related to "spatial" qualities (available here). These included the amount of green space and urban sprawl, as well as pollution, isolation and even cultural assets. The good news is that these features are probably important ones when judging a city. The bad news is that they may not have been applied in quite the right way, since the resulting list (below) comes up with a few oddities.

Consider the top-rated city, Hong Kong. It moved up nine notches from tenth. Does it deserve the crown based on its spatial features? To be sure, it has lush vegetation. But that is because the city sits on such a vertical, tropical rock that it is impossible to build in many places. And although hiking trails at the peak are only a ten minute cab ride from downtown, one can only enjoy it a few months of the year, after the monsoon runs dry and the suffocating humidity and heat burns away. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is losing expats by the droves because of pollution: a generation of school children are condemned to carrying asthma inhalers since their little lungs are speckled with contaminants blowing across the harbour from mainland China. That might not sound so livable to some, particularly if the rankings are "spatially adjusted".

Next, look at Osaka (at third place) versus Tokyo (at number ten). Even the EIU's ranking places both Japanese cities in this order. Yet might it suggest a limitation to the data-driven approach? After all, anyone who has lived in Japan—other than Osaka natives—would prefer the glamorous world capital to the industrial provincial city that is falling on hard economic times. Moreover, the EIU index was originally designed for human resource managers to adjust salaries in tune with the ease with which expats could live abroad. Tokyo teems with English speakers and signs in Chinese; Osaka is as insularly Japanese as always.

A third shortcoming is that the spatially adjusted ranking doesn't include many of the top cities of the EIU's index since they were below the population cut-off that the contest winner, Filippo Lovato, used in his sample. This is a particular pity, since it would have been very interesting to see how the rankings directly compare—a point made by Gulliver in a post today.

The new indicators themselves are clever but perhaps overly laden with values that do not lend themselves to quantifiable comparisons. What "sprawl" means in Memphis (a grimy over-extension of the city) is different than Tokyo (an orderly expansion of the world's biggest metropolis). And is "isolation" a feature or a drawback when the world is connected by networks of wires and airplanes? In Mr Lovato's indicators it is a negative; to residents of cities like Seattle and Vancouver, it is probably a benefit.

That said, the EIU report acknowledges that everyone will grumble over the rankings: we all have our favourite places based on individual criteria. Some of the runner-ups created interactive rankings that let people weigh their preferences, which seems like a useful feature. In the end, the EIU's decision to adopt an "open data" philosophy, to partner with BuzzData and to experiment with a crowdsourced method to improve the ranking was an excellent one. Congratulations to Mr Lovato and a hat-tip to the judges: David Eaves, an open-government expert; Nathan Yau of Flowing Data; Hilary Mason at bit.ly; and the EIU's Jon Copestake and Charles Barber.

The ranking shows how, when attempting to taxonomize and measure what should essentially be experiential, and should therefore be experienced rather than objectively quantified, huge skewing can occur.

As a Hong Kong-native, it is unfortunate that I have to suggest to the rankers to go and actually live in Hong Kong for a month or so, like a local (i.e. not in actual houses which are the reserves of the ultra-rich, but the standard three hundred square feet flats in which whole families cram themselves), especially during the summer. I suspect Hong Kong would disappear off this list altogether. Its disgusting pollution, its unstable political status as part of China yet not China, its almost unbearable heat and humidity, and its highest level of disparity between the rich and the poor in the world, make it one of the least liveable cities in the developed world.

That said, it does have a few things going for it: its high efficiency in almost everything, its excellent public transport system, and its low salary tax yet as yet still intact public benefits system, if that's the sort of thing you're looking for. But those things really cannot even come close to compensating for its many horrendous aspects (we all need to breathe; it's nice to actually have some private space in the form of a liveable flat or house; and to be claustrophobically refined to indoor air-conditioned space in the 8 to 9 months or so when it is very hot and humid outside, or else suffer a constant film of sweat on your entire body, is not usually considered very comfortable).

In some Hong Kong internet forums, people talk about their glorious ranking as the "MOST" livable city with kind of laugh and scorn. They know their place and what they best for, but it's just not the "MOST" livable city.

What does the "Spatially Adjusted" ranking mean? That it is a nice place to live considering the tiny amount of livable space the people have to squeeze themselves into? OK. Next thing we know we'll have "Intellectually Adjusted" rankings for the purpose of electing officials.

Here in the Lone Star State we go Houston and Dallas wheres every intersection you got access to a Walmar, a Filling Station or delicious food stand then we got all the convenient strip malls and plenty of places along the ways for unlimited worship of the Lord and sports emporiums for handguns and whatnot. Above all we got more free parking then all them other places oversees put together!!

What a fantastic place to live in if one were to simply see the silver lining in every single cloud that clouds the city: Traffic snarls give you more time to listen to FM radio; every road is so pathetic you don't really have to go to a dirt-track; lack of electricity gives you time to reflect and internalize; a non-existent sky-line enables you to see the sky clearly; hardly any outdoor avenues let you focus more on spending time with your family; and Water and Electricity supplies are so rare as to improve the equanimity of the residents' minds.

I am sure the research company, by including Bangalore in their next list, will do a great service to mankind.

Putting Toronto on this list is ridiculous. This city has a laughable subway system which the city's political leadership refuses to extend, instead proposing to build "light rail", and a pathetic "commuter rail system" consisting of one line where trains run once an hour outside rush hour and on all the other lines, a limited number of trains in to downtown Toronto in the morning and out of downtown Toronto in the afternoon and buses at other times. Toronto traffic is notoriously bad at all times of day, 7 days a week and the main highway across the north side of the city, Highway 401 is congested at all times despite being up to 18 lanes in some sections and being divided into "express" and "collector" lanes, although the express lanes are anything but. Furthermore, it has a major problem of jobs leaving the city and moving to office parks in the suburbs (mostly in Mississauga, in undesirable areas near Pearson Airport) to save on taxes, which adds to the traffic congestion.

Funny, seeing Berlin and Hong Kong ranked close to each other.
I thought both stand for an absolutely contrarian model, of life, of a city society, Hong Kong standing for making it thru hard work, Berlin standing for living nicely without working since apartments and cappuccinos are cheaper then in other world cities.
Anyway Hamburg has always been coolest of them all in her understatement type of way

I also live in HK, but unfortunately this city is far away from being number 1. The entire administration is in the hands of a few property developers, which leads to sky rocketing real estate prices. The urban areas are congested and full of concrete without any green. Leisure time for locals is nothing but running into air conditioned shopping malls and restaurants. There is not too much high culture given the size of the city. The cultural district has been delayed for a decade, shopping malls rise much faster. The geography of HK is unique with its stunning harbor front and outlying islands. The government however does not even care about putting benches or trees to the waterfront promenade, not speaking about missing outdoor bars/restaurants or other leisure infrastructure. Have a look at Sydney Darling Harbour etc.!
Few big cities have nearby beaches, but they also look sad....Aboveall polution gets worse. Cars and diesel buses get prioritized. There is no green initiative, no pedestrian zone, no bicycles. So this is worlds's number one??

Just can't accept Hong Kong is a great place to live, can you?
Consider THIS:
Universal, if no frills, medical coverage.
15% flat tax (four sides of A4 to fill out at most).
Safe for your daughters to be out, even alone, in the middle of the night.
Super public transport.
Efficient.
Orderly.
Rugby 7s.

I would dispute that one can only enjoy Hong Kong's countryside for a few months of the year. Only the most foolhardy would venture out in a monsoon but such events are brief, few and dry out quickly. At other times a few thousand feet up a mountain is the best place to be when it's hot, with a light breeze and much fresher air than the city. Take a few litres of water and something to keep the sun off and you can last all day. You need not do much climbing: follow one of the less precipitous trails such as that on Hong Kong Island or around the Kowloon peaks, or start with a bus or cable-car ride to Ngong Ping. Or if that's not to your liking hire a boat to the islands.

Tokyo is a great city, sure, but having spent significant time in both, Osaka is (to my mind quite clearly) the better place to live. The people are more friendly, the food is better, the city is more manageable, you have easy access to Kobe and Kyoto--and, really, there's nothing in Tokyo that you can't also get in Osaka (except perhaps some rude glares). Oh, and Osaka is cheaper (significantly).

Has the author actually been to this "industrial, provincial city," which is the throbbing heart of a 20-million person metropolitan area, and, as someone else here mentioned, the cultural capital of Japan? Really, man, you should check it out. Tokyo is fantastic, but Osaka really is better.

"After all, anyone who has lived in Japan—other than Osaka natives—would prefer the glamorous world capital to the industrial provincial city that is falling on hard economic times."
One look at the Map of Japan will tell that Osaka is within an hour's train ride from Three really attractive cities: Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe. The local food is miles better than Tokyo's (which Tokyo makes up for by having arguably the World's most diverse selection of quality cuisines), and the locals are free-marketeers unlike in Tokyo (Osaka is home to the World's first commodity futures exchange, way back in the early 18th Century).